p2679773| 
|Eo78b 

Zebina  Eastman.   "Black  Code  of  Illinois 

[partial  text  only;  author  died 
while  writing  it]       (looJ) 


ILLINOIS  HISTORICAL  SURVEY 


UNIVERSITY  Oi- 
^'W'?  LIBRARY 


// 


4         &UL*4    . 

LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

BLACK  CODE  OF  ILLINOIS. 


h 

AT  the  portal  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  as  if  engraved  on  a 
column  of  brass,  stands  this  inscription,  from  the  Ordinance 
for  its  Government: 

"  There  shall  be  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  the 
said  Territory,  otherwise  than  in  punishment  of  crime  whereof  the 
party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted." 

Why  there  should  have  been  any  occasion  for  this 
restriction  is  one  of  the  most  marvelous  eccentricities  of 
modern  Christian  civilization.  Had  the  inscription  over 
the  gateway  been  "  Murder  shall  not  enter  here,"  it  would 
not  have  been  more  strange.  There  is  a  history  to  this 
transaction  which  will  invite  the  attention  of  us  all,  but 
which  can  not  be  comprised  in  one  chapter,  and  it  serves 
our  purpose  to  introduce  it  simply  as  the  first  great  fact,  . 
which  must  be  before  our  sight,  as  the  monumental  tablet 
from  which  we  take  our  departure. 

The  interest  in  this  great  fact  will  be  intensified  when  we 
trace  up  future  history,  and  find  that  the  consecration  of  the 
Northwest  Territory,  of  which  Illinois  is  a  part,  to  freedom 
forever,  by  the  patriots  founding  this  Nation,  became  the 
pivotal  Act  by  which  slavery  was  not  only  excluded  from 
this  section,  but  through  which  the  Nation  itself  was  finally 
delivered  from  that  curse;  for  it  was  on  this  consecrated 
soil  that  the  moral  battle  was  fought,  and  that  preceded 
the  war  of  emancipation.  Here,  in  this  State,  was  the  first 
contest  waged  against  slavery,  which  became  a  conquest. 


1 8  THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

This  conquest  was  the  defeat,  by  the  votes  of  the  people  of 
Illinois  in  1823-4,  of  the  attempt  to  legalize  slavery  in  the 
State  in  violation  of  the  Ordinance,  in  nullifying  the  Call 
for  a  Convention  to  alter  the  constitution  for  that  purpose. 
Here  a  Lovejoy  gave  his  blood  in  martyrdom,  and  in  the 
sphere  of  its  Territory  did  a  Giddings,  Chase,  Samuel 
Lewis,  a  second  Lovejoy,  a  Codding,  a  Collins,  and  an 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  work  out  their  mission  to  this  end. 
In  this  State  were  trained  for  their  great  work,  a  Grant  and 
a  Washburne,  and  for  the  completion  of  it  all  was  raised 
up  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  to  become  the  emancipator  of  the 
four  million  slaves  that,  by  the  powers  of  evil,  had  been 
nursed  in  the  bosom  of  this  Republic.  Had  there  been  no 
Northwest  in  this  moral  sense,  and  no  Northwestern  Ordi- 
nance for  its  Government,  how  vastly  different  would  have 
been  the  fate  of  this  Nation,  with  its  fearful  slide  into  apos- 
tasy, in  its  moral,  political,  and  governmental  condition! 
This  Ordinance  bore  date  July  1*3,  1787.* 

The  enabling  Act  of  Congress,  by  which  the  people  of 
the  State  might  vote  to  put  off  their  minority,  and  enter 
into  the  indissoluble  bonds  of  the  National  Union,  required 
strict  conformity  to  this  condition  of  perpetual  freedom. 

CONSTITUTIONAL   PROVISIONS. 

The  Constitution  of  the  State,  made  in  1818,  makes  this 
harmonious  declaration :  "  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary 
servitude  shall  hereafter  be  introduced  into  this  State  other- 
wise than  for  the  punishment  of  crimes  where  the  party 
shall  have  been  duly  convicted," — indorsing  and  using  the 
words  of  the  Ordinance. 

One  would  think  the  Temple  of  Liberty  sufficiently 
guarded,  bulwarked  by  these  two  firm  buttresses,  on  which 
stand  the  pillars  at  its  portal.  But  there  is  something  more 
in  this  State  Constitution,  with  only  a  break  of  a  semicolon- 

*  Virginia  made  her  cession  March  i,  1784. 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF    ILLINOIS.  19 

It  is  this:  "Nor  shall  any  male  person  arrived  at  the  age  of 
21  years,  nor  any  female  person  arrived  at  the  age  of  18 
years,  be  held  to  serve  any  person  as  a  servant  under  any 
indenture  hereafter  made,  unless  such  person  shall  enter 
into  such  indenture  while  in  a  state  of  perfect  freedom,  and 
on  a  condition  of  a  bona-fide  consideration  received  or  to 
be  received  for  their  services.  Nor  shall  any  indenture  of 
any  negro  or  mulatto  hereafter  made  and  executed  out  of 
this  State,  or  if  made  in  this  State,  whose  term  of  service 
exceeds  one  year,  be  of  the  least  validity,  except  those 
given  in  cases  of  apprenticeship." 

There  seems  to  be  a  strange  muddle  of  conditions  in  this 
language.  Involuntary  servitude  is  prohibited,  yet  there 
are  certain  conditions  that  remind  us  that  permission  is 
granted  under  prohibition.  Under  the  Constitution,  no 
person  shall  hereafter  be  bound  as  a  servant  unless  he  shall 
enter  into  a  contract  with. perfect  freedom;  is  there  here  a 
constitutional  inference  that  under  the  old  law  there  was 
constraint,  and  they  were  forced  to  be  servants  as  they 
had  been  forced  to  be  slaves?  Again,  there  shall  be  no 
validity  to  a  contract  with  a  negro  for  more  than  one  year's 
service,  except  in  case  of  apprenticeship.  What  else  could 
apprenticeship  mean  to  a  negro  but  that  same  condition  he 
was  in  before  regulated  by  this  Constitution  ? 

The  Constitutional  provisions  are  continued  in  other  sec- 
tions: "No  person  bound  to  labor  in  any  other  state  shall 
be  hired  to  labor  in  this  State,  except  within  the  tract 
reserved  for  the  salt-works  near  Shawneetown,  nor  even  in 
that  place  for  a  longer  period  than  one  year  at  any  one 
time,  nor  shall  it  be  allowed  there  after  the  year  1825. 
Any  violation  of  this  article  shall  effect  the  emancipation 
of  such  person  from  his  obligation  to  service."  Permis- 
sion again  under  prohibition.  There  is  something  about 
this  salt-work  business  worthy  of  attention.  It  was  one 
of  the  rat-holes  through  which  slavery  crept  into  the  Terri- 


20  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

tory.  Saline  springs  or  bogs  were  discovered  which  gave 
to  the  early  settlers  the  much-needed  article  of  salt,  if  prop- 
erly improved.  To  bring  over  a  slave  from  Kentucky  to 
make  salt  enough  to  salt  his  porridge  served  the  legal  pur- 
pose of  his  introduction,  and  many  a  farm  was  fenced  and 
worked  in  the  southern  portion  of  the  State  by  slaves  work- 
ing in  the  salt-works;  and  that  process  of  saving  slavery 
with  salt  continued  till  1825."" 

Another  section  provides  as  follows:  "Each  and  every 
person  who  has  been  bound  to  service  by  contract  or  in- 
denture in  virtue  of  the  laws  of  Illinois  Territory  heretofore 
existing,  and  in  conformity  to  the  provisions  of  the  same, 
without  fraud  or  collusion,  shall  be  held  to  a  specific  per- 
formance of  their  contracts  or  indenture:  and  such  negroes 
or  mulattoes  as  have  been  registered  in  conformity  with 
the  aforesaid  laws  shall  serve  out  the  time  appointed  by 
said  laws;  provided,  however,  that  the  children  hereafter 
born  of  such  persons,  negroes  or  mulattoes,  shall  become 

*  A  saline,  or  water  strong  enough  to  make  salt,  was  found  in  a  district  of 
country  about  ten  or  twelve  miles  northwest  of  Shawneetown,  on  the  Ohio 
River.  The  salines  were  reserved  from  sale  by  the  United  States.  The 
General  Government  leased  these  salines  to  individuals,  and  afterward  to  the 
State  of  Illinois,  allowing  slaves  to  be  brought  into  the  Territory  for  the  pur- 
pose of  working  them.  Under  the  Territorial  law,  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  slaves  were  introduced  into  the  southern  part  of  the  Territory,  chiefly  from 
the  states  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 

For  all  practical  purposes,  this  part  of  the  Territory  was  as  much  a  slave- 
state  as  any  of  the  states  south  of  the  Ohio  River.  To  roll  a  barrel  of  salt 
once  a  year,  or  put  salt  into  a  salt-cellar,  was  sufficient  excuse  for  any  man  to 
hire  a  slave,  and  raise  a  field  of  corn.  Slaves  were  not  only  worked  at  the 
saline,  they  were  waiters  in  taverns,  draymen,  and  used  in  all  manner  of  work 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Ohio  River.  As  villages  and  settlements  extended 
farther,  the  disease  was  carried  with  them.  A  black  man  or  a  black  woman 
was  found  in  many  families,  in  defiance  of  law,  up  to  the  confines  of  our  Set- 
tlement, sixty  miles  north,  and  in  one  instance  in  it.  In  some,  but  not  many, 
cases,  they  were  held  defiantly;  in  others,  evasively. — English  Settlement  in 
Jtdwards  County.  By  Geo.  Flower.  Chicago  Historical  Society's  Collection. 
Vol.  I.  Chicago,  1882. 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  21 

free— the  males  at  the  age  of  21  years,  and  the  female  at 
the  age  of  18  years.  Each  and  every  child  born  of  indent- 
ured parents  shall  be  entered  with  the  clerk  of  the  county 
in  which  they  reside,  by  the  owners,  within  six  months  from 
the  birth  of  said  child."  It  seems  by  this  that  children  of 
indentured  persons  were  constitutionally  owned  by  their 
masters.  By  reference  to  the  law,  which  will  be  soon 
quoted,  it  will  be  seen  that  perpetual  slavery  was  possible 
under  this  clause  of  the  Constitution,  for  none  of  the  chil- 
dren were  emancipated  till  they  were  of  legal  age;  but 
propagation  may  come  much  earlier  than  legal  majority. 

Such  were  the  Constitutional  provisions  of  the  first  Con- 
stitution of  the  State,  looking  fair  on  their  face;  but  on 
close  scrutiny  it  is  seen  to  attempt  to  provide  for  a  mud- 
dled condition  of  things,  which  that  old  muddle  of  mud- 
dles, the  slave  system  ever  brought  to  the  community 
and  muddled  the  heads  of  our  good  fathers.  They  would 
prohibit  it,  but  were  required  to  make  provisions  for  its 
continuance.  The  fathers  of  our  Constitution,  like  Gov. 
Edwards  and  Nathanial  Pope,  were  among  the  best  of  our 
early  men.  It  was  the  hardest  fate  ever  brought  upon  a 
nation,  to  face  this  perpetuated  evil  of  centuries  with  the 
necessity  that  it  must  be  ended ;  and  it  is  not  strange  that 
it  took  the  greatest  war  of  modern  times  to  cut  that  intri- 
cate knot  with  the  sword.* 

Wm.  H.  Brown,  Esq.,  in  a  lecture  before  the  Chicago 

*  At  the  meeting  of  the  Convention  for  forming  the  Constitution  of  Illinois, 
in  August,  1818,  a  decided  majority  of  the  delegates  were  in  favor  of  admitting 
slavery,  in  the  face  of  the  Northwestern  Ordinance,  and  the  Act  of  Congress 
authorizing  the  Call  of  the  Convention,  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  We 
were  so  informed  by  Col.  Steyhenson,  a  member  for  Madison  County,  who 
said  it  was  entirely  owing  to  the  efforts  and  influence  of  three  men,  who  were 
not  members,  that  the  unrestricted  admission  of  slavery  into  the  State  was  not 
allowed  by  the  Constitution.  These  men  were  Ninian  Edwards,  Nathaniel 
Pope,  and  Daniel  P.  Cook.  As  this  fact  was  known  to  the  disappointed 
slavocrats,  they  conceived  the  design  of  trying  the  question  again  at  a  future 
period. — Hoofer  lVa,rren. 


22  THE    BLACK    CODE   OF    ILLINOIS. 

Lyceum,  December  8,  1840,*  states  that  "the  sixth  article 
of  the  Constitution,  declaring  that  slavery  or  involuntary 
servitude  should  not  hereafter  be  introduced  into  the  State, 
was  the  subject  of  warm  debate,  and  the  only  exciting 
topic  during  the  session."  He  then  gives  a  sketch  of  the 
slave  laws  of  the  Territory,  which  will  be  given  here  in  the 
proper  place,  and  continues:  "Thus  it  will  be  perceive'd 
that  the  subject  of  slavery,  in  all  its  varieties,  as  it  then 
existed,  was  calculated  to  excite  a  deep  interest  when  it 
was  supposed  that,  by  Acts  of  the  Convention,  it  was  to 
be  upheld  or  wholly  swept  away.  Its  advocates  were  anx- 
ious to  insert  into  the  Constitution  a  saving  clause,  by 
which  their  supposed  rights  would  be  confirmed,  while  the 
ultras  of  the  opposite  party  were  ready  to  overturn  the 
whole  fabric.  The  Convention  took  a  middle  course,  leav- 
ing the  right  to  the  French  slaves  and  their  descendants, 
to  be  adjudicated  by  the  Courts  of  the  country;  and 
declaring  that  those  who  had  been  bound  to  service  by 
indenture  or  contract,  in  conformity  with  the  Territorial 
Law,  without  fraud  or  collusion,  should  be  held  to  a  specific 
performance  of  their  contracts,  and  also  that  those  who 
had  been  registered  should  serve  out  the  time  appointed 
by  law.  The  anti-slavery  men  were  contented  with  the 
saving  clause  in  the  words,  "without  fraud  or  collusion,"  as 
they  contended  that  in  all  cases  of  indentured  servants 
there  was  both  the  one  and  the  other.  To  a  great  extent, 
they  were  no  doubt  correct ;  for  cases  were  not  uncommon 
where  the  unfortunate  servant,  before  going  to  the  clerk's 
office,  was  whipped  into  a  proper  state  of  mind,  'freely 
and  voluntarily'  to  enter  into  contract  with  his  master. 
But  in  all  cases  it  was  understood  that  if  his  consent  were 
not  given,  the  slave  would  be  immediately  removed  to  a 
slave-holding  state,  to  remain  in  bondage  in  the  hands  of 
some  one  perhaps  less  kind  than  his  present  possessor;" 
*  FERGUS'  HISTORICAL  SERIES,  No.  4. 


THE   BLACK    CODE   OF    ILLINOIS.  23 

and    the  master  had    sixty  days  in   which   to   make  the 
removal. 

FRENCH    SLAVES. 

We  must  now  go  back  a  century  or  more  to  find  facts 
which  will  help  to  solve  this  muddle  of  the  Constitution. 

Notwithstanding  Illinois  was  a  part  of  the  Northwest 
Territory,  and  under  the  restriction  of  this  Ordinance  and 
one  of  the  States  formed  under  it,  it  was  nevertheless  one 
of  the  old  slave-colonies.  Slavery  was  introduced  into  Illi- 
nois in  1720,  when  it  was  a  part  of  the  French  possessions 
of  the  Northwest.  Philip  Francis  Renault  formed  a  com- 
pany in  France  for  working  mines  in  upper  Louisiana, 
which  was  a  part  of  Illinois;  and  he  started  from  his  coun- 
try ostensibly  in  the  mining  business,  with  two  hundred 
mechanics  and  laborers,  and  on  his  way  at  San  Domingo, 
he  purchased  five  hundred  slaves,  and  brought  them  with 
him  to  Illinois.  A  portion  of  these,  or  their  descendants, 
were  afterward  removed  to  the  other  French  possessions, 
on  the  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  helped  to  swell  the  ag- 
gregate of  Louisiana  slavery.  Those  that  remained  were 
the  progenitors  of  the  class  known  in  our  State  from  old 
time  as  the  "French  slaves,"  and  fell  in  later  as  a  part  of 
the  report  of  the  census  of  slaves  in  Illinois ;  and  the  French- 
man Renault  must  be  set  down  as  the  first  Illinois  slave- 
holder.* 

These  French  slave-holders  have  been  described  as  being 

*  I  find  mention  made  of  this  important  character  in  E.  G.  Mason's  "  Kas- 
kaskia  and  its  Parish  Records"  (FERGUS*  HISTORICAL  SERIES,  No.  12), 
under  date  of  May,  1721.  He  appears  at  the  register  of  the  baptism  of  the 
son  of  a  Pawnee  slave,  as  le  Sieur  Philippe  de  la  Renaudiere,  directeur  des 
mines  pour  la  Compagnie  «"  Occident.  Mr.  Mason  says,  "  He  was  a  great  man 
in  the  new  colony,"  and  he  appears  next  in  the  entry  of  the  baptism  of  a  son 
born  of  the  marriage  of  himself  (this  Renaudiere)  with  the  lady  Perrine  Pivet. 
The  baptism  of  the  son  of  this  great  man,  of  a  little  place,  was  a  state  affair, 
involving  the  signatures  of  all  the  other  great  characters  of  the  community. 


24  THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

of  rather  high-class  men,  and  kind  and  paternal  to  their 
slaves.  We  know  that  the  French,  on  their  possession  of 
the  Northwest,  found  little  difficulty  in  affiliating  with  the 
aborigines,  and  doubtless  they  could  look  upon  the  black 
person  as  not  altogether  uncompanionable.  As  indicative 
of  the  French  relations  both  to  the  Indians  and  the  Negroes, 
we  find  such  entries  as  these  from  Mr.  Mason's  transcript 
of  the  Parish  Records  of  Kaskaskia.  The  first  entry,  in 
an  early  volume,  is  the  record  of  the  baptism  of  a  son  of 
one  of  Hennepin's  voyageurs,  intermarried  with  a  daughter 
of  the  chief  of  the  Kaskaskias.  Entries  of  the  baptisms 
of  children  by  intermarriages  with  the  Indians  are  very 
common.  There  is  an  entry  of  the  baptism  of  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  slave  woman,  which  bears  an  Indian  name.  Records- 
are  made  of  the  baptisms  of  slaves,  men  and  women ;  and 
also  of  the  marriage  of  slaves  with  each  other.  We  know 
that  the  Catholics  (of  which  religion  these  French  settlers 
were)  regard  marriage  as  a  holy  sacrament,  and  baptism  a 
sort  of  saving  ordinance.  These  ceremonies,  performed 
with  the  slaves  Renault  bought  in  St.  Domingo,  show  that 
in  the  estimation  of  the  good  fathers  the  property  relation 
could  not  step  in  to  bar  them  from  their  spiritual  privileges; 
whereas  we  know  that  in  our  enlightened  period  of  Ameri- 
can Christian  bondage,  marriages  were  never  solemnized 
with  the  slaves,  except  in  mockery,  and  with  the  union 
limited  to  circumstances  and  the  will  of , the  owner  to  sep- 
arate the  twain;  and  baptism  seldom,  and  then  often  in 
this  form:  "Caesar,  the  property  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
Smith,  I  baptise  thee  in  the  name  of-  — ,"  etc.  We 

are  glad  to  record  that  any  sunshine  of  humanity  could 
any  where  have  penetrated  into  that  dark  cloud. 

This  importation  of  blacks  made  a  distinct  class  and  the 
occasion  of  a  distinct  order  of  slaveholders  about  Kaskaskia 
and  the  American  Bottoms,  and  where  now  descendants  of 
both  masters  and  slaves  reside  in  a  common  Illinois  citi- 


THE   BLACK    CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  2$ 

zenship.*  At  that  time  slavery  was  legalized  in  all  Chris- 
tian countries — that  is,  if  regulating  a  system  which  the  law 
did  not  create  be  legalizing  it.  If  there  is  any  law  that 
created  American  slavery,  I  have  not  yet  found  it.  These 
slaves  that  Renault  brought  to  Illinois  were  under  French 
jurisdiction  at  that  time  and  for  nearly  half  a  century,  till 
the  Northwest  was  ceded  to  Great  Britain  in  the  treaty  of 
1763.  They  then  came  under  the  English  law  of  bondage  (if 
there  was  any  such);  and  when  the  Territory  was  captured 
by  George  Rogers  Clark,  in  1778,  which  was  done  in  the 
name  of  the  sovereignty  of  Virginia,  if  they  continued 
slaves  under  any  law,  it  must  have  been  under  the  slave 
code  of  Virginia.  When  that  State  c^eded  the  territory  to 
the  Nation,  these  slaves  must  have  been  perpetuated  in 
bondage  under  United  States  law;  and  yet  the  United 
States  had  no  such  law.  From  the  cession  of  Virginia  to 
the  Nation  in  1784,  till  1790,  when  Gov.  St.  Clair  organ- 
ized the  county  which  took  his  name,  the  people  who  resided 
in  this  Territory  had  no  legislative  or  judicial  supervision, 

*  The  Settlement  of  Kaskaskia,  Prairie-du-Rocher,  Fort  Chartres,  Prairie- 
du-Pont,  and  Cahokia,  in  the  "American  Bottom,"  now  included  in  the  coun- 
ties of  Randolph,  Monroe,  and  St.  Clair,  were  made  by  Frenchmen  about  one 
hundred  years  previously  to  the  passage  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787.  These 
French  settlers  were  principally  Indian  traders,  the  owners  of  a  considerable 
number  of  slaves,  which  they  continued  to  hold  in  defiance  of  that  Ordinance^ 
and  by  the  time  the  Territory  and  State  began  to  be  settled  by  Americans, 
they  had  become  very  wealthy.  They,  or  their  descendants,  by  means  of 
intermarriage  with  American  immigrants,  have  wielded  an  influence  which  has 
continued  to  rule  the  political  destiny  of  the  State.  Among  those  Americans 
who  thus  made  their  fortunes  by  marrying  the  daughters  or  granddaughters  of 
the  old  French  settlers,  are  some  of  the  numerous  family  of  the  Morrisons, 
Elias  K.  Kane,  Col.  Thomas  Jefferson,  Vance  Owen,  late  Dr.  Belts  of  Chi- 
cago. Judge  Breese,  (Judge  Thomas, )  John  Reynolds,  and  Adam  W.  Snyder. 
— //.  Warren  in  Genius  of  Liberty. 

Of  the  French  descendants  direct,  there  were  those  who  had  the  same  influ- 
ence in  the  line  of  their  .inherited  perquisite,  as,  for  instance,  Pierre  Menard 
and  Nicholas  Jarrott.  And  as  politicians,  and  they  have  been  prominent  as 
such  in  the  State,  they  were  ever  true  to  their  inherited  interests. 


26  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF    ILLINOIS. 

and  were  a  law  unto  themselves,  holding  the  slaves  with 
the  grip  which  they  had  previously  obtained.  But  the 
Ordinance  for  the  secession  declared  that  "there  shall  be 
neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  the  said  Terri- 
tory." Why  this  Ordinance  was  inoperative  in  this  essen- 
tial point,  to  the  slavery  then  in  existence,  is  something 
similar  in  character  to  the  later  Dred  Scott  decision — virt- 
ually that  not  to  have  slavery  was  unconstitutional.  But 
the  action  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787  was  said  to  be  pro- 
spective, and  the  courts  so  decided.  It  was  not  until 
1845  that  the  supreme  court  of  this  State  settled  this  ques- 
tion of  "vested  rights,"  deciding  that  the  slave  descendants 
of  Renault's  importation  of  125  years  previous  were  free; 
and  the  Constitution  of  this  State,  of  1848,  put  an  end  to 
(  involuntary  servitude  of  every  form  in  Illinois.*  In  1800, 
there  was  probably  a  population  in  the  section  that  became 
Illinois  of  about  three  thousand  persons.  At  that  time  there 
were  reported  in  the  census,  including  Indiana  as  well,  133 
slaves.  These  must  have  been  in  the  main  in  Illinois,  and 
the  descendants  of  the  "French  slaves."  In  1810,  Illinois 
had  168  slaves;  in  1820,917 — a  vast  increase  in  the  course 
of  twenty  years,  showing  that  the  increase  must  have  come, 
if  genuine  slaves,  from  smuggling  in  from  the  border 
slave  States,  and  held  under  the  inherited  vested  rights,  or 
laborers  in  the  salt-works,  or  from  the  "indentured -ser- 
vants system,"  which  was  a  dodge  upon  the  restrictive 
clause  of  the  Ordinance.  In  1820,  the  population  of  the 
State  was  48,919  whites,  1,476  blacks,  917  of  which  were 
slaves;  total,  50,395. 

ATTEMPTS   TO    ABROGATE   THE   ORDINANCE   OF   '87. 

There  came,  in  time,  the  practise  of  disregarding  this 
prohibition    in    bringing    slaves    into    many    parts  of  the 

*  Western  Annals. 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF    ILLINOIS.  2/ 

Territory,  and  even  reporting  them  in  the  census.  This 
was  done  in  Wisconsin  as  late  as  1840,  the  marshal  report- 
ing a  number  of  slaves  in  the  said  Territory.  Dr.  E.  G. 
Dyer,  of  Burlington,  Wis.,  father  of  the  United  States 
judge,  C.  E.  Dyer,  of  Racine,  attacked  the  marshal  for  this 
illegal  report,  and  disclosed  the  fact  that  these  reported 
slaves  were  held  generally  by  persons  in  official  positions 
in  the  United  States  government*  Such  were  some  of  the 
early  assumptions  of  the  doctrine  of  squatter  sovereignty, 
that  a  man  had  the  inalienable  right  to  take  his  slave  with 
him  into  any  territory  into  which  he  chose  to  remove.  These 
facts  are  a  little  ahead  of  the  logical  events  of  history.  But 
it  suits  the  symmetry  of  the  subject  to  bring  them  in  here. 
It  is  best,  however,  to  state  here  that  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  the  Northwest  Territory  was  a  bid,  like  "free 
Kansas,"  for  its  settlement  by  a  hardy  and  industrious  class 
who  thrived  by  the  labor  of  their  own  hands,  and  for  its 
settlement  by  a  class  of  men  from  the  South  who  were 
conscientiously  opposed  to  slaveholding.  It  was  empha- 
sized as  a  free  country,  and  free  men  felt  invited  to  make 
here  their  homes.  The  early  population  of  the  Northwest 
was  composed  of  men  of  this  mingled  character;  and 
those  who  believed  that  prosperity  came  from  one  man 
having  the  power  to  compel  some  other  man  to  work  for 
him  for  nothing,  viz.:  those  who  would  own  slaves. -j* 

There  came,  then,  from  this  condition  the  incipient  con- 
flict of  ideas  of  the  past  generation.  The  anti-slavery  sen- 

*  See  Appendix — Slavery  in  Wisconsin. 

t  During  the  consideration  of  the  Ordinance  of  '87  in  Congress,  Rev.  Ma- 
nassah  Cutler,  representing  a  company  of  capitalists  from  New  England,  was 
negotiating  with  Congress  for  the  purchase  of  four  millions  of  acres  of  land 
in  the  Northwest,  on  which  to  settle  colonies  from  the  East,  which  he  declared 
would  be  "of  the  most  robust  and  industrious  people  in  America,  which  would 
instantly  advance  the  price  of  Federal  lands,"  etc.  The  anti-slavery  sentiment 
of  Virginia  and  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  seconded  by  the  desire  of  free 
laborers  to  possess  the  land,  determined  the  policy  of  the  Ordinance. 


28  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF    ILLINOIS. 

timent  of  the  Revolution  was  then  pervading  as  a  live 
principle.  There  was  dissatisfaction  by  interested  persons 
on  the  other  side  at  the  restriction  in  the  Ordinance.  The 
first  petition  on  the  subject  to  Congress  came  in  1796,  from 
four  persons  in  Kaskaskia,  in  this  State,  the  seat  of  this 
inherited  French  slavery,  asking  that  slavery  might  be 
tolerated  there.  It  seems  that  they  felt  they  were  holding 
their  chattels  on  a  feeble  tenure.  At  that  time  we  were 
all  in  one  common  Northwest  Territory.  Ohio  became  a 
State  in  1 800;  then  all  the  territory  west  and  north  of  the 
Ohio  River,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Kentucky,  became  the 
Territory  of  Indiana,  with  William  Henry  Harrison  gover- 
nor. In  1804,  a  Convention  was  held  at  Vincennes,  of 
which  Gov.  Harrison  was  president,  to  deliberate  on  terri- 
torial interests,  and  from  this  Convention  went  up  a  memo- 
rial to  Congress,  which  was  referred  to  a  committee,  which 
reported,  recommending  the  suspension  of  the  sixth  article 
of  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  "in  a  qualified  manner,  for  ten 
years,  so  as  to  permit  the  introduction  of  slaves  born  in. 
the  United  States."  This  report  was  not  adopted,  and 
neither  the  previous  prayer  of  the  Kaskaskians  heeded. 

At  the  session  of  the  Indiana  Territorial  Legislature  in 
1806-7,  a  series  of  resolutions  were  adopted  and  reported 
to  Congress  by  the  delegate,  requesting  the  suspension  of 
this  restrictive  article  of  the  Ordinance.  We  were  then  a 
part  of  that  Territory.  Jesse  B.  Thomas  was  speaker  of 
the  house,  and  Pierre  Menard,  president  of  the  council ; 
both  citizens  of  Illinois,  the  latter  a  French  slaveholder,  and 
the  former  intermarried  writh  such.  This  report  was  lost 
in  Congress  also.  These  early  efforts  to  establish  slavery 
aroused  the  people,  and  an  issue  was  made  similiar  to  that 
which  was  made  afterward  in  our  State  called  the  "conven- 
tion question."  .  Jonathan  Jennings,  an  anti-slavery  mant 
was  elected  Delegate  to  Congress,  which  position  he  held 
till  Indiana  was  admitted  as  a  State.  It  is  known  that 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  29 

Gen.  Harrison   was   in   favor  of  introducing   slavery   into 
the  Northwest  Territory.* 

These  facts  prepare  us  for  the  introduction  of  "  The 
Black  Code  of  Illinois."  Some  of  the  people,  if  they  could 
not  have  slavery  legitimately,  would  have  it  illegitimately; 
for  the  infamy  which  fell  upon  us  was  conceived  in  sin  and 
brought  forth  in  iniquity,  a  half-parented  progeny. 

TERRITORIAL   LEGISLATION. 

The  Indiana  Territorial  Legislature  passed  an  Act, 
dated  Sept.  17,  1807,  which  is  the  embryo  of  our  Black 
Code,  with  this  title:  "An  Act  concerning  the  introduction 
of  Negroes  and  Mulattoes  into  this  Territory." 

As  statute  enactments  are  rather  dull  reading,  I  will 
summarise  the  thirteen  sections  of  this  act  of  1807,  which 
is  the  nucleus  of  our  Black  Code,  into  a  few  sentences. 

The  Act  permits  the  oivncr  of  any  negro  or  mulatto, 

*  There  are  facts  as  well  as  admissions  that  prove  the  views  entertained  by 
Gen.  Harrison.  See  Henry  Wilson's  History  of  the  Slave  Power,  also  Harri- 
son's Speech  at  Vincennes,  during  the  presidential  canvass  of  1840. 

"When  this  provision  (excluding  slavery  fro/n  the  Territory  of  Illinois)  was 
under  consideration,  Gen.  Harrison,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives from  Ohio,  declared  in  debate  that  this  prohibitary  clause  could 
have  no  effect  after  the  State  was  duly  organized  and  admitted  to  the  Union. 
[This  seems  to  be  primary  squatter  sovereignty.]  He  contended  that  his  own 
State,  Ohio,  had  the  right,  notwithstanding  the  Ordinance  and  the  Act  of 
Congress,  at  any  time  to  alter  her  Constitution  so  as  to  admit  slavery.  "- 
Jlooper  IVarren  in  Genius  of  Liberty,  July  17,  1841. 

And  not  only  was  he  in  favor  of  legalizing  slavery  in  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory, but  it  appears  that  he  was  actually  a  slaveholder  under  the  Ordinance  of 
'87.  We  now  give  some  facts  from  a  rare  and  reliable  source,  Lundy's  Genius 
sf  Universal  Emancipation.  The  article  was  published  in  1822,  in  the  Genius 
and  in  a  Cincinnati  paper,  where  the  scene  occurred : 

"A  circumstance  transpired  about  seven  years  ago  in  this  city  which  shows 
clearly  the  tyrannical  disposition  of  this  self-styled  ardent  friend  of  human 
liberty.  The  story  is  related  by  the  family  who  witnessed  the  scene,  as  follows : 
About  the  time  above  stated,  Gen.  Harrison  entered  the  house  of  Mr.  Jacob 
Hoops,  on  Sixth  Street,,  in  search  of  a  black  woman  named  ISetty,  whose  ser- 
vice he  claimed.  He  found  her  at  her  work  in  the  kitchen,  and  immediately 


3O  THE   BLACK    CODE   OK   ILLINOIS. 

above  the  age  of  15,  to  bring  him  into  the  Territory — and 
within  30  days  to  register  him  with  the  clerk,  and  there 
make  an  agreement,  which  is  to  be  recorded. 

Sec.  I.  Authorizes  the  owner  of  any  negro  or  mulatto 
of  and  above  the  age  of  15  years,  and  owing  service  and 
labor  as  a  slave,  in  any  State  or  Territory  in  the  United 
States,  to  bring  said  slaves  into  this  Territory. 

Sec.  2.  Provides  that  the  owner  of  such  negro,  etc., 
might  within  30  days  go  with  the  same  before  the  Clerk  of 
the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  in  the  county  where  the  par- 
ties reside,  and  agree  with  the  negro  or  mulatto  upon  the 
number  of  years  he  or  she  should  serve  the  master,  to  be 
recorded  by  the  Clerk. 

Sec.  3.  Allows  the  master,  in  case  of  the  refusal  of 
the  slave  to  make  such  contract,  to  remove  him  within  60 
days  into  any  State  or  Territory.  If  the  slave  should 
stand  on  his  new  dignity  and  refuse,  the  master  could 

ordered  her  to  get  her  clothes  and  follow  him.  The  woman  started  to  go  up 
stairs,  which  were  at  that  time  in  an  unfinished  state,  and  as  she  was  old  and 
clumsy,  and  probably  withal  a  good  deal  agitated,  she  found  it  difficult  to 
ascend.  Whereupon  the  general  fell  to  beating  her  with  his  cane,  in  a  most 
unmerciful  manner,  and  actually  broke  it  by  the  violence  of  the  blows.  Not- 
withstanding he  was  William  H.  Harrison,  late  a  general  in  the  army,  he 
received  a  severe  reprimand  from  a  young  lady,  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Hoops, 
which,  if  it  did  not  shame  him  very  much,  astonished  him.  Mr.  Hoops, 
hearing  a  disturbance  in  the  house,  went  in  and  inquired  the  cause;  where- 
upon the  humane,  noble-hearted  general,  seeing  a  man  in  the  house,  imme- 
diately retired.  Shortly  after,  he  had  the  woman  arrested  according  to  law, 
took  her  before  a  magistrate,  and  substantiated  his  claim  to  her. 

Now  came  on  the  second  act  of  the  heart-rending  scene.  The  woman  (as 
might  be  expected  from  the  treatment  she  had  received)  utterly  refused  to  go 
with  the  general.  She  said  he  had  agreed  to  set  her  free  at  a  certain  time,  on 
condition  she  would  come  with  him  from  Vincennes  to  this  State;  that  she 
had  left  her  husband  and  came  on  that  condition;  and  that  the  time  appointed 
had  expired.  But  her  entreaties  were  of  no  avail;  this  friend  of  human  free- 
dom had  her  dragged  in  a  most  shocking,  brutal  manner  across  the  common 
to  his  boat  on  the  river!"  What  strange  combinations  of  legal  assumptions 
could  have  made  Gen.  Harrison  believe  he  had  any  title  to  this  woman,  to 
take  her  from  one  free  state  to  another!  or  to  hold  her  anywhere! 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  31 

remove  him  in  60  days.  Property  could  be  acquired  in 
these  registered  slaves,  till  males  were  35,  females  32 — and 
children  born  of  such  should  be  owned  by  their  master  till 
30  and  28. 

Sec.  5.  Provides  that  any  person  removing  into  the 
Territory  with,  or  should  any  person  acquire,  a  property  in 
such  slaves,  they  might  hold  such  slaves  to  service,  males 
to  the  age  of  35,  females  to  32. 

Sec.  6.  Made  it  the  duty  of  the  master  to  register  with 
the  Clerk  their  names  and  ages,  and  they  were  styled  reg- 
istered or  indentured  servants. 

Sec.  13.  Provided  that  children  born  of  such  indentured 
parents,  should  serve  their  masters  (owners},  males  until 
the  age  of  30,  females  28. 

This  continued  to  be  the  law  of  the  Territory,  of  which 
Illinois  was  a  part;  in  1809,  Illinois  became  a  Territory  of 
herself,  and  re-enacted  the  former  territorial  laws,  making 
the  Act  above  quoted  the  law  of  the  Illinois  Territory.  It 
is  this  law  that  is  referred  to  in  the  Constitution  quoted, 
and  therein  somewhat  modified.  This  Territorial  Black 
Code,  with  the  Constitutional  modifications,  became  the 
law  by  adoption  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  until  she  remod- 
eled and  enlarged  it  in  1819. 

But  the  iniquity  of  the  thing  was  not  yet  wholly  ma- 
tured. Under  the  State  law,  it  was  simplified  and  worked 
up  into  a  system.  The  laws  were  revised,  and  what  had 
gone  before  with  that  which  seemed  best  to  have  added, 
were  codiciled,  so  to  speak,  or  made  into  our  code.  The 
revision  took  place  in  1833.  It  is  in  this  revision,  with  the 
act  of  1829,  where  the  special  elements  of  slavery  come  in, 
by  which  we  may  characterize  it  as  a  Slave,  as  well  as  a 
Black  Code. 

STATE   LEGISLATION. 
Act  approved  March  30,  1819. 


32  THE    BLACK    CODE   OF    ILLINOIS. 

Sec.  I.  Prohibits  any  black  or  mulatto  person  settling 
or  residing  in  the  State  without  producing  a  certificate  of 
freedom,  etc.  This  section  was  amended  and  will  be 
referred  to  again.  It  was  the  first  blow  at  free  negroes. 
It  follows  the  precedent  of  slave- state  legislation,  that 
gives  no  place  for  a  negro  on  our  broad  domain  unless  he 
be  a  slave;  in  this  case,  that  this  State  shall  not  be  an 
asylum  for  those  who  ran  away  from  oppression. 

There  are  25  sections  to  this  act,  and  if  it  were  not  for 
the  variety  of  the  matter,  would  be  very  dull  reading.  I 
have  carefully  summarised  them  all.  It  would  weary  you 
beyond  measure,  if  I  were  to  give  these  sections  entire. 
But  you  may  be  assured  they  will  read  very  well  by  the 
side  of  the  Blue  Laws;  Black  and  Blue  together. 

Sec.  2.  Makes  it  the  duty  of  all  free  negroes  having 
families  and  having  a  certificate,  as  before  provided,  to 
register  their  families,  with  a  description  of  each  name, 
age,  etc. 

Sec.  3.  Prohibits  any  person  from  bringing  any  slave 
into  this  State  for  the  purpose  of  emancipating  such  slave, 
making  it  a  condition  for  those  who  do  so,  to  give  bond 
in  the  penal  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars,  condition  that 
such  slave  shall  not  become  a  county  charge;  neglecting 
so  to  do,  subjected  the  offender  to  a  fine  of  $200  for  each 
one  so  emancipated.  [The  law  was  in  operation,  and 
upon  Gov.  Coles,  for  emancipating  his  Virginia  slaves,  at 
Edwardsville,  in  1819.]*  It  was  amended  in  1833,  so  as  to 

*  Edward  Coles,  afterward  governor,  was  born  in  Virginia,  and  was  an 
anti-slavery  man  of  the  old  school  of  Jefferson,  Franklin,  etc.  He  removed 
to  this  State  for  permanent  residence  in  1819.  He  brought  with  him  a  family 
of  slaves,  whom  he  had  inherited.  On  a  flatboat  on  the  Ohio  River  he  for- 
merly gave  them  their  freedom.  On  the  4th  of  July,  1819,  he  legally  eman- 
cipated them,  giving  them  deeds  of  emancipation.  This  was  in  violation  of 
the  law  of  March  19,  which  had  been  passed  the  previous  spring,  and  which, 
at  that  time,  was  not  generally  known,  not  having  been  published.  These 
deeds  of  emancipation  were  the  basis  of  much  persecution,  and  a  long  and 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  33 

allow  the  emancipator  release,  on  giving  bonds  that  the 
slave  should  not  become  a  county  charge. 

Sec.  4.  Requires  every  black  or  mulatto  (except  slaves 
or  persons  held  to  service)  to  register  his  name  and  his 
family,  with  their  description  and  the  evidences  of  free- 
dom, which  shall  be  recorded  by  the  clerk,  which  certifi- 
cate of  record  should  be  sufficient  evidence  of  freedom, 
except  as  against  the  claim  of  a  slave-owner.  This  was  a 
law  altogether  to  hit  the  free  negro. 

Sec.  5.  Forbids  any  person,  under  a  penalty  of  one 
dollar  and  fifty  cents  a-day,  from  hiring  or  employing  such 
negroes,  without  a  certificate  of  freedom,  keeping  the  said 
free  negro  out  of  employment.  This  was  amended. 

Sec.  10.  Makes  it  the  duty  of  masters  to  provide  ser- 
vants with  sufficient  food,  clothing,  etc.,  —  a  law  found 
necessary  in  slavery — but  it  is  no  where  found  necessary  to 
require  an  owner  to  give  his  horse  sufficient  hay  and  grain, 
unless  on  common  grounds  of  cruelty  to  animals. 

Sec.  ii.  Makes  these  contracts  for  services  assignable 
to  other  persons,  with  consent  of  servants,  such  assign- 
ments to  administrators,  assigns,  etc.  Thus  the  property 
relation  is  recognized.  It  was  a  common  thing  to  sell 
these  servants. 

Sec.  12.  Provides  that  any  servant  being  lazy,  disor- 
derly, guilty  of  misbehavior,  may  be  whipped,  upon  an 
,  order  of  a  justice;  or  refusing  to  work,  be  compelled  by  a 
like  process,  and  forfeiting  two  days  to  the  end  of  his  ser- 
vice for  every  one  in  which  he  so  refuses  and  is  whipped 

bitter  lawsuit.  Suit  was  instituted  against  him  in  1824,  while  he  was  governor 
of  the  State,  by  a  worthless  fellow  set  on  for  the  purpose,  with  the  title,  The 
County  of  Madison  versus  Edward  Coles.  John  Reynolds  was  the  judge,  and 
the  case  went  over  to  another  term,  and  judgment  rendered  against  defendant 
for  $2000.  The  Legislature,  in  1825,  passed  an  Act  releasing  all  penalties 
under  this  Act.  But  the  case  was  still  kept  in  court  by  appeals  and  devices 
of  annoyance,  until  finally  the  emancipator  was  let  off  from  the  penalty  of  this 
philanthropic  deed,  by  the  payment  of  heavy  costs. 

3 


34  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF    ILLINOIS. 

up  to  it,  and  all  expenses,  including  whipping,  be  paid  by 
him  in  labor,  which  would  finally  have  to  be  whipped  out 
of  him. 

Sec.  13.  Provides  that  for  the  failure  of  the  master's 
duties,  or  if  he  is  guilty  of  injuring  his  servant,  it  must  be 
redressed  in  the  Circuit  Court — a  pretty  hard  court  for  a 
flogged  slave  to  get  access  to. 

Sec.  14.  Makes  all  contracts  between  masters  and  ser- 
vants, during  the  time  of  service,  void. 

Sec.  15.  Makes  it  the  duty  of  the  Circuit  Court  at  all 
times  to  hear  complaints  of  servants,  being  citizens,  (here 
is  a  difference)  against  masters,  for  immoderate  correction, 
or  on  complaints  of  masters  against  servants  for  desertion, 
etc.  There  was  a  slave  law  in  slave  States  that  absolved 
a  master  from  punishment  if  the  slave  died  under  moder- 
ate correction. 

There  seems  to  be  some  protection  to  the  negro  in  these 
sections,  but  we  shall  see  that  in  the  Act  concerning  Prac- 
tise in  the  Courts,  in  R.  Laws,  page  536,  it  provides  that  a 
person  having  one-fourth  negro-blood,  shall  in  no  case  be 
a  witness  against  a  white  person. 

Sec.  1 6.  Provides  that  if  any  servant  shall  lawfully 
acquire  property  during  the  time  of  service,  such  property 
shall  be  for  his  own  use;  and  the  master  is  compelled  to 
care  for  him  when  sick  and  lame,  until  his  term  expires, 
under  penalty  of  $30,  for  use  of  the  county.  [Mercy  here 
again  some  what  strained.] 

Sec.  17.  Forbids  any  negro  or  Indian  from  purchasing 
any  servant  other  than  of  their  own  color,  and  makes  such 
contract  void.  [If  this  law  had  extended  to  white  per- 
sons it  might  have  put  a  new  face  on  servant  hire.] 

Sec.  18.  Forbids  any  person  to  hire  or  to  buy,  sell, 
receive  of,  to,  or  from  any  servant  or  slave,  any  coin,  or 
commodity,  without  consent  of  the  master,  under  a  forfeit- 
ure of  four  times  the  value  of  the  article  sold  or  given. 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  35 

[A  dollar  given  in  good-will  on  Christmas  would  involve 
a  forfeiture  of  four  dollars.]  It  also  provides  that  at  the 
expiration  of  the  term,  the  clerk  shall  give  a  certificate, 
which  shall  indemnify  any  person  for  thereafter  hiring. 

Sec.  19.  Provides  that  in  all  cases  of  penal  acts,  where 
free  persons  are  punishable  by  fine,  servants  shall  be  pun- 
ished by  whipping^  and  the  rate  given  (twenty  lashes  for 
every  eight  dollars,  the  rate  of  the  currency  being  forty 
cents  a  lash),  unless  the  offender  procures  another  person 
to  pay  his  fine. 

[We  see  from  the  above,  with  all  power  of  contract  gone, 
and  buying  and  selling  prohibited,  what  little  chance  the 
person  has  of  lawfully  acquiring  property,  or  what  chance 
he  may  have  of  paying  off  a  penalty,  for  which  the  white 
loafer  pays  eight  dollars,  while  the  black  must  settle  it  at 
the  rate  of  twenty  lashes  for  every  eight  dollars.  We  can 
see  no  reasonableness  in  this,  except  that,  like  the  skinning 
of  eels,  they  did  n't  mind  it,  because  they  were  used  to  it.] 

Sec.  20.  Provides  that  at  the  expiration  of  his  service, 
every  servant  may  have  his  freedom  recorded,  etc. 

Sec.  21.  Provides  that  if  any  slave  or  servant  shall  be 
found  at  a  distance  of  ten  miles  from  the  tenement  of  his 
master  without  a  pass,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  any  person  to 
apprehend  and  carry  him  or  her  before  a  justice,  by  whose 
order  he  or  she  may  be  whipped,  not  exceeding  thirty-five 
lashes.  [How  much  thirty-five  lashes  means  there  is  no 
way  to  tell,  unless  some  one  tries  it,  having  them  well  laid 
on.] 

Sec.  22.  Provides  that  if  any  slave  or  servant  shall  pre- 
sume to  come  and  be  upon  the  plantation,  or  at  the  dwell- 
ing of  any  person  whatever,  without  leave  of  his  or  her 
owner,  not  being  sent  on  lawful  business,  [it  is  pretty  hard 
to  tell  just  here,  in  this  muddle  of  law,  what  is  lawful 
business  for  a  slave]  the  owner  of  such  plantation  or 
dwelling  may  give  such  servant  or  slave  ten  lashes  on  the 
bare  back. 


36  THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

Sec.  23.  Provides  that  riots,  routs,  unlawful  assemblies, 
trespasses,  and  seditious  speeches  by  any  slave  or  slaves, 
servant  or  servants,  may  be  punished,  at  the  discretion  of  a 
justice;  and  whoever  will,  MAY  apprehend  such  persons 
and  bring  them  before  the  justice.  [This  Mr.  Whoever 
Will  becomes  a  constable.  There  may  be  a  black  crowd, 
perhaps  of  one  more  than  three  jolly  persons,  and  at  the 
lead  of  one  white  villain  they  may  be  brought  before  a 
justice,  and  he  the  only  witness  of  their  evil  plotting  or 
riotous  conduct,  (negroes  will  sometimes  laugh  boister- 
ously,) and  not  one  of  them  can  say  a  word  of  defence  or 
explanation,  or  affirm  that  they  were  not  engaged  in  their 
spiritual  devotions,  but  they  must  bare  their  backs  to 
whatever  flagelation  the  justice  may  discretionarily  inflict.] 

We  have  a  vague  notion  that  the  Ordinance  of  '87  had 
something  to  say  to  the  effect  that  slaves  should  not  be 
on  this  soil  to  tempt  the  lash  of  the  justice;  also  that  the 
Constitution  has  something  to  say  in  regard  to  offences, 
trial  by  jury,  and  about  unreasonable  arrests;  and  that 
punishments  should  be  in  proportion  to  offences,  and  not 
according  to  the  amount  of  whisky  that  had  been  imbibed. 

Sec.  24.  Imposes  a  fine  of  $20  upon  any  person  who 
suffers  or  permits  slaves  or  servants  of  color,  to  the  num- 
ber of  more  than  three,  to  assemble  in  any  house,  yard,  or 
shed,  (pasture  and  wood-lot  ought  to  have  been  added)  for 
the  purpose  of  reveling,  night  or  day.  [Fun,  as  well  as 
mischief,  is  here  discouraged  by  the  righteous  law.  This 
is  a  law  for  white  men,  and  they  come  in  for  some  share  of 
the  penalty,  in  giving  any  countenance  to  the  effervescent 
demonstrations  of  the  colored  person's  right  to  be  a  man.] 

Sec.  25.  Makes  it  the  duty  of  all  coroners,  sheriffs, 
judges,  and  justices,  who  see  or  know  of  any  such  assem- 
blage, immediately  to  commit  such  persons  to  jail;  and  on 
proof  have  them  whipped,  (whipped  for  having  a  jolly 
time,)  not  exceeding — exceeding  how  much? — thirty-nine 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  37 

lashes  on  the  bare  back,  the  very  next  day,  unless  it  should 
be  Sunday,  then  the  whipping  was  to  come  off  Monday. 
[Swift  and  pious  justice!  Every  black  crowd  of  more 
than  three,  for  having  a  jolly  night  of  it,  might  be  tolera- 
bly sure  of  a  thirty-nine  lash  flogging  the  very  next  day, 
unless  it  was  done  on  the  slave's  favorite  night  for  a  good 
time,  Saturday  night,  then  they  might  be  sure  of  the  Sab- 
bath's rest  and  contemplation  in  jail  of  what  should  come 
on  Monday,  which  might  be  called  a  red-day.  One  is  per- 
plexed which  to  admire  most,  the  philanthropy  of  this  law 
or  its  piety,  as  is  indicated  by  its  reverence  for  the  Lord's 
Holy  Day.] 

These  several  last  sections  seem  like  a  transcript  of  the 
slave  codes  of  Louisiana  or  South  Carolina.  The  people  of 
those  days  in  Illinois  must  have  lived  in  mortal  fear  of  an 
insurrection  of  their  numerous  slaves.  Possibly  there  may 
have  been  an  awakening  of  conscience  to  have  made  cow- 
ards of  them  all. 

THE   SLAVE   PARTY. 

Thus  far,  as  to  the  legislation  of  the  State,  soon  after 
Illinois  became  one  of  the  Union,  perhaps  indicating  the 
civilization  of  the  times.  The  Act  of  which  the  foregoing 
is  a  summary,  was  approved  March  30,  1819.  Shadrack 
Bond  was  then  our  first  Governor.  It  was  evidently  in 
accordance  with  the  sentiments  of  the  Governor,  and  the 
personal  party  which  supported  him.  Political  party  lines 
were  not  then  drawn.  But  there  was  then- already  a  nu- 
cleus of  a  party  forming;  HOOPER  WARREN,  the  editor  of 
the  only  anti-slavery  paper  in  the  State,  or  indeed  then  in 
the  Nation,  called  it  the  SLAVE  PARTY.  The  promoters  of 
the  slave  system  in  our  legislature — but  not  the  people  at 
large  —  had  shown  thus  much  their  greed  for  the  slavery 
that  was  monopolized  in  the  section  known  as  the  slave 
States.  That  system  was  wisely  excluded  by  the  Ordi- 


38  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

nance  of  '87,  and  they  took  the  next  best  substitute  they 
could  for  it;  indentured  and  registered  servants,  and  slav- 
ery to  a  limited  extent,  in  a  thin  disguise,  and  in  the 
monopoly  of  the  salt  business.  The  population  at  the 
extreme  section  of  the  State  was  made  up  largely  from 
emigrants  over  the  line  in  Kentucky,  and  the  neighboring 
State  of  Tennessee,  and  they  thought  it  a  political  blun- 
der that  slavery  had  been  excluded  from  this  Territory. 
Among  the  population  there  was  a  class  of  men  from  the 
South  who  were  conscientiously  opposed  to  slavery;  and 
also  in  the  northern  section,  a  population  from  the  Free- 
States,  who  had  never  had  the  curse  of  slavery  upon  them, 
and  desired  to  be  ever  free  from  it.  This  class  abounded 
in  th,e  northern  counties,  which  had  rapidly  become  more 
populous;  but  at  the  same  time,  by  the  apportionment  of 
representatives  in  districts,  the  slave  party,  as  Mr.  Warren 
called  it,  had  a  preponderating  influence  in  the  legislature. 
The  legislature  for  many  years  in  the  beginning  of  our 
career  as  a  State,  was  in  favor  of  the  slave  policy,  and  the 
people  against  it. 

LEGALIZATION   OF   SLAVERY. 

Therefore,  four  years  after  the  passage  of  this  law,  of 
which  I  have  given  a  synopsis,  the  legislature,  through 
some  crookedness,  passed  an  Act,  to  authorize  the  people 
to  vote  on  a  call  for  a  convention  to  alter  the  constitution, 
by  a  two-thirds  vote,  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  legislat- 
ing slavery,  genuine  Kentucky  slavery,  into  the  State  of 
Illinois.  This  was  that  important  epoch  in  our  State  his- 
tory known  as  the  Convention  Question,  and  not  much 
known  at  the  present  time  either.  The  people  voted  it 
down  by  a  respectable  majority.  With  this  object,  voted 
for  at  that  election  on  the  same  ticket,  "For  the  Conven- 
tion," which  meant  for  slavery,  were  the  following  proposi- 
tions: 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  39 

"For  exclusion  of  negroes  and  mulattoes.  No  right  of 
suffrage  or  office  to  negroes  or  mulattoes." 

"For  laws  excluding  negroes  and  mulattoes  from  com- 
ing into  and  voting  in  this  State." 

I  never  have  been  able  to  find  the  Act  which  authorized 
the  people  to  vote  on  the  Convention,  but  I  infer  that  the 
vote  was  on  these  propositions  as  well,  and  was  voted 
down  with  the  call,  for  I  find  them  on  a  ticket,  as  given  in 
the  lately-published  life  of  Gov.  Edward  Coles,  by  Hon. 
E.  B.  Washburne.  This  Convention  Question  forms  a 
chapter  of  its  own.  It  has  been  an  overlooked  episode  in 
our  history.  Almost  all  that  has  been  published  about  it, 
consecutively,  has  come  from  the  auspices  of  the  Histori- 
cal Society,  in  Mr.  Brown's  Lecture,*  and  in  Mr.  Wash- 
burne's  Life  of  Coles.  It  is  remarkable  as  being  the  only 
triumph  made  by  the  people  over  a  direct  issue  for  slavery, 
national  or  otherwise,  made  by  the  machinations  of  the 
slave  power,  from  the  passage  of  the  Ordinance  of  '87  till 
the  defeat  of  the  slave  power  in  its  rebellion.  It  was  a 
political  conflict,  immediately  succeeding  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  in  which  the  slave  power  won,  and  which 
partook  of  the  nature  of  the  prolongation  of  that  contest, 
transferred  to  a  free  State. 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  how  much  the  people  in  the  early 
period  of  our  State  were  misrepresented  by  the  legisla- 
ture. The  people  were  soundly  opposed  to  the  slavery 
policy,  from  the  earliest  time,  so  that,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
combined  Territory  of  Indiana  elected  Jonathan  Jennings, 
an  anti-slavery  man,  delegate,  and  kept  him  in  office  till 
Indiana  became  a  State;  then,  in  the  Territory  of  Illinois, 
Nathaniel  Pope,  an  anti-slavery  man,  was  elected  and  was 
a  delegate  when  Illinois  became  a  State;  and  Ninan 
Edwards,  the  Territorial  Governor,  was  known  as  an  anti- 
slavery  man,  though,  as  one  of  our  first  Senators,  he  voted 
*  FERGUS'  HISTORICAL  SERIES,  No.  4. 


40  THE    BLACK   CODE   OF    ILLINOIS. 

for  the  admission  of  Missouri  with  slavery.  The  people 
were  known  to  be  opposed  to  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
yet  the  legislature  elected  Senators  who  supported  it,  while 
the  people  elected  Daniel  P.  Cook  to  Congress,  who  had 
voted  against  it;  the  legislature  refused  to  censure  or 
instruct  their  Senators,  while  the  people  reflected  Cook  by 
a  large  majority;  the  legislature  voted  for  a  convention, 
and  the  people  largely  voted  it  down;  the  people  con- 
tinued to  reelect  Mr.  Cook,  the  anti-slavery  Representative 
to  Congress,  while  the  legislature  made  Senators  succes- 
sively of  the  candidates,  John  McLean,  and  E.  K.  Kane, 
who  were  beaten  by  Mr.  Cook  in  the  election  with  the 
people. 

The  legislature  having  failed  to  get  a  recognition  from 
the  people  for  the  Convention,  and  for  the  expulsion  of 
free  negroes,  and  general  slave  policy  in  that  vote  of  1824, 
proceeded  to  do  what  they  could,  in  their  own  way,  to 
carry  out  this  policy,  apparently  independent  of  their 
constituents.  The  legislature  was  then  so  constituted,  as 
partly  explained  before,  that  a  minority  of  the  voters 
could  elect  a  majority  of  the  State  Representatives  and 
Senators. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  this  Act  of  1819,  which  I  have 
abridged,  related  mainly  to  the  introduction  of  negroes  as 
servants.  It  need  -not  be  inferred  there  were  no  negroes, 
free  or  otherwise,  in  the  State,  or  that  they  were  indiffer- 
ent as  to  their  treatment  and  fate,  or  that  they  laid  down 
supinely  under  the  burden  of  oppression  laid  upon  .them, 
or  that  they  had  no  friends  to  advocate  their  rights.  They 
had  such  friends  as  Gov.  Coles,  Hooper  Warren,  John  M. 
Peck,  Morris  Birkbeck,  and  George  Flower.  Persons  styl- 
ing themselves  free  persons  of  color,  had  the  audacity  to 
petition  the  Legislature  of  1822-3,  in  which  they  very 
humbly  asked  a  redress  from  their  grievances  under  the 
law  cited,  and  for  the  right  of  suffrage.  The  petition  starts 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF    ILLINOIS.  41 

forth  with  this  premise:  "Notwithstanding  the  Father  of 
Mercies  moved  the  hearts  of  the  citizens  of  this  State,  and 
actuated  them  to  throw  off  the  shackles  of  slavery  from 
our  sable  race,  yet,  awful  to  relate,  (and  in  a  free  country, 
too,)  we  are  the  objects  of  rapine,  plunder,  and  devasta- 
tion to  free-booters."  One  would  think  so  from  the  law 
which  I  have  given  in  synopsis.  This  petition  deserves 
a  place  in  full  in  this  history.  The  style  of  the  production 
shows  that  it  was  of  the  colored  people's  own  concoction.* 
The  promoters  of  the  slave  party  had  failed  to  get  from 
the  people  any  authority  for  special  legislation  against  free 
blacks.  If  their  policy  is  to  be  pursued,  some  amend- 
ments or  additions  to  the  existing  code  will  be  required; 
and  the  coming  emergency,  in  the  growing  civilization,  or 
uncivilization,  which  contact  with  the  growing  love  for 
slavery  aggression  demanded,  must  be  regarded  with  or 
without  constitutional  authority.  The  process  of  amend- 
ment did  not  mend,  but  marred,  as  alterations  in  the  com- 
mandments consists  in  breaking  them  in  other  spots. 

LEGISLATION   INTENSIFIED. 

So  in  1829,  five  years  after  the  rebuff  on  the  Convention 
Question,  and  the  several  disapprovals  by  the  people  of 
the  policy  of  the  slave  party,  the  Black  or  Slave  Code  was 
amended  by  additions,  and  the  animus  of  th&  times  vented 
upon  the  negro  as  a  negro,  in  the  Act  of  January  7,  (1829) 
which  will  now  come  up  for  review. 

This  Act  will  be  seen  to  be  largely  a  transcript  of  the 
genuine  slave  code  of  the  Southern  Slave  States,  applied 
to  territory  where  slavery  was  forever  prohibited.  Hith- 
erto the  negro  had  in  a  measure  been  left  to  himself,  if  he 
did  not  happen  to  belong  to  the  enslaved  class;  and  there 
did  not  seem  to  be  any  call  to  legislate  to  keep  the  negro 
in  the  bonds  which  had  been  laid  upon  him  in  the  other 

*  See  Appendix. 


42  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

states.  So  this  act  becomes  a  voluntary  offering  to  the 
slave  system  that  was  locked  up  in  the  Nation.  This,  and 
the  previous  one  of  1819,  was  further  sanctified  by  being 
taken  in  bodily  into  the  Revised  Laws  of  1833.  We  will 
now  proceed  with  a  synopsis  of  the  Act  of  January  7, 
1829 — passed  ten  years  after  the  previous  Act. 

Sec.  i.  Prohibits  any  black  or  mulatto  person,  not 
being  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  from  coming  and 
residing  in  this  State,  until  such  person  shall  produce  to 
the  County  Commissioners'  Court  where  he  or  she  shall 
settle,  a  certificate  of  freedom,  duly  authenticated;  and 
also  give  bond  in  the  penal  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars, 
with  sufficient  security,  conditioned  that  such  person  shall 
never  become  a  charge  to  any  county  in  this  State  as  a 
poor  person;  and  at  all  times  to  demean  himself  or  herself 
in  strict  conformity  with  the  laws  that  now  are,  or  here- 
after shall  be,  enacted.  It  also  imposes  a  fine  of  Jive 
hundred  dollars  (one-half  to  the  county  and  the  other  to 
the  prosecutor)  upon  all  persons  who  shall  harbor,  hire,  or 
in  any  way  give  sustenance,  to  any  negro  or  mulatto  who 
has  not  such  bond. 

[Now  in  all  conscience,  what  has  come  over  the  face  of 
the  earth,  especially  Illinois,  these  last  ten  years,  that 
should  so  have  affected  the  negro,  the  morals,  the  religion, 
the  education,  culture,  and  civilization  of  the  people  of  this 
State,  up  to  the  momentous  epoch  of  1829,  that  such  an 
act,  bearing  upon  the  negro,  should  have  been  passed,  as 
indicated  by  this  first  section?  What  sticklers  for  the 
observance  of  law  the  people  have  at  once  become,  or  the 
legislature,  that  they  put  one  class  of  people  under  bond 
to  obey  the  law  which  another  class  have  enacted,  or  may 
hereafter  enact!  And  have  the  people  such  regard  for  it, 
that  before  they  give  a  hungry  man  a  dinner,  before  they 
send  him  down  into  the  pasture  to  drive  up  the  cows, 
before  they  let  a  poor  colored  woman  wash  their  shirts, 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  43 

before  they  pull  certain  persons  out  of  the  water  for  fear 
they  will  be  drowned,  they  will  search  in  their  pockets  to 
see  if  they  have  given  a  bond  for  freedom!] 

We  will  observe  the  apparent  sincerity  with  which  the 
first  clause  opens,  in  recognizing  the  rights  of  citizens  of 
any  one  of  the  other  States.  This  was  suggested  from  a 
clause  in  the  Missouri -Compromise  Act,  that  while  the 
said  act  permitted  slavery,  it  prohibited  the  State  from 
excluding  from  her  citizenship  any  person  who  was  a 
citizen  of  another  State;  which  meant  free  negroes  from 
States  where  there  was  no  restriction  on  account  of  color. 
New  York  was  then  an  instance  of  this  kind.  This  was 
supposed  to  be  a  bitter  pill  for  Missouri;  but  she  took  it 
with  her  slavery  with  a  right  good  relish,  and  she  honora- 
bly stood  by  it  to  the  last;  and  a  free  'nigger'  of  New  York 
was  always  a  free  'nigger'  in  Missouri.  Illinois  imitated  her 
slave-holding  honor  in  that  regard,  in  this  clause  of  the 
section  quoted.  But  as  the  apostacy  towards  slavery  came 
on,  this  right  in  Illinois  was  regarded  less  sacred,  and  this 
clause  was  repealed,  as  we  shall  see,  and  a  colored  citizen 
of  New  York  was  no  longer  permitted  to  settle  in  Illinois, 
and  thus  the  State  sunk  itself  below  the  slave-holding 
honor  of  Missouri. 

Sec.  2.  Declares  that  any  black  or  mulatto  person  who 
shall  be  found  in  this  State,  not  having  such  a  certificate 
(as  required  in  section  one),  shall  be  deemed  a  run-away 
slave  or  servant,  and  may  be  taken  by  any  inhabitant  in 
this  State  before  a  justice,  and  if  unable  to  produce  a  cer- 
tificate, the  justice  shall  commit  him  or  her  to  the  custody 
of  the  sheriff,  who  shall  keep  such  person,  and  in  three 
days  advertise  him  upon  the  court-house  door,  and  in  the 
nearest  newspaper,  giving  a  description  of  such  supposed 
run-away;  and  if  within  six  weeks  the  person  so  com- 
mitted shall  not  produce  a  certificate  or  other  evidence  of 
freedom,  (the  citizen  of  New  York  could  produce  neither 


44  THE    BLACK    CODE  OF   ILLINOIS. 

master  or  certificate  of  freedom,  and  other  evidence  might 
not  be  available,  and  no  claim  could  be  made  for  him 
except  by  a  kidnapper)  the  sheriff  shall  hire  out  such  per- 
son for  the  best  price,  after  five  days'  notice,  from  month 
to  month,  for  one  year;  and  if  during  the  year  no  owner 
shall  appear  and  substantiate  a  claim  to  such  person,  the 
sheriff  shall  give  a  certificate  of  the  facts;  whereupon 
such  person  shall  be  deemed  free,  unless  thereafter  lawfully 
claimed  by  a  proper  owner.  Should  such  owner  appear, 
he  is  required  to  pay  to  the  taker-up  ten  dollars,  to  the 
justice  two  dollars,  and  to  the  sheriff  reasonable  fees  and 
expenses.  [We  see  that  the  object  of  this  section  is  to 
make  a  blood-hound  of  the  State  for  southern  slave-hold- 
ers; and  that  the  "any  inhabitant"  who  plays  the  part  of 
the  blood-hound  is  well  paid,  and  that  justice  at  two  dol- 
lars is  cheap.] 

Sec.  3.  Forbids,  under  penalty  of  fine,  whipping,  and 
imprisonment,  any  marriage  of  all  persons  of  color  with  a 
white  person,  male  or  female;  and  makes  such  marriage 
null.  And  fine  is  threatened  to  any  person  who  shall 
license,  or  perform  the  marriage  ceremony.  [This  is  a 
consummation  not  devoutly  to  be  wished  by  the  newly- 
married  couple,  the  whipping -post.  It  is  a  prohibition 
against  legal  amalgamation;  illegitimate  amalgamation  is 
not  even  discouraged  by  this  Act,  and  the  prohibition  of 
the  testimony  of  a  colored  person,  male  or  female,  against 
a  white  person,  opens  wide  the  flood-gates  of  sin.] 

Sec.  4.  Provides  that  if  any  negro  or  mulatto,  the 
property  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  shall  come 
into  the  State  for  the  purpose  of  hiring  out,  and  shall 
institute  proceedings  for  his  freedom,  his  case  shall  be  dis- 
missed from  the  court.  And  then  the  sheriff  shall  take 
possession  of  the  negro  and  confine  him  in  jail,  and  notify 
the  owner,  and  keep  him  till  the  owner  comes.  [A  short 
way  to  dispose  of  a  case  in  court!  How  happy  it  would 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS.  45 

be  for  some  of  us  impecunious  fellows  if,  when  we  are  sued 
for  a  debt,  the  case  is  thrown  out  of  court,  and  the  cred- 
itor seized  and  put  in  jail.  That  would  have  been  an  old- 
fashioned  stay-law,  with  an  amendment.] 

Such  is  an  abstract  of  the  Act  of  1829,  which  was  also 
incorporated  into  the  Revised  Laws  of  1833.  But  this  Act 
had  to  be  amended,  but  not  mended.  For  in  1831,  the 
law  was  made  to  declare  that  no  black  or  mulatto  person 
should  be  permitted  to  reside  in  the  State,  thus  cutting 
down  the  right  of  citizenship  of  citizens  of  other  States, 
which  Missouri  never  assumed  to  do  up  to  the  advent  of 
the  rebellion.  The  same  Amendment  also  fines  any  per- 
son one  hundred  dollars  for  bringing  any  slave  into  the 
State  for  the  purpose  of  freeing  him,  and  fines  all  persons 
who  assist  him  in  so  doing.  [This  was  passed  before  the 
under-ground  railroads  did  a  flourishing  business.] 

These,  the  Act  of  1819  and  the  Act  of  1829,  were  the 
two  main  pillars  of  the  Black  Code.  But  there  were  other 
laws  that  had  other  phases,  in  which  they  touched  the 
black  man;  indeed,  the  animus  of  white  pride,  after  this  is 
intensified.  What  an  awful  inference  used  to  come  from 
this  idea  of  color!  The  devil  is  made  black;  in  Africa,  the 
devil  is  white. 

I  quote  now  from  the  Criminal  Code,  approved  Febru- 
ary 1 6,  1833.  All  that  has  gone  before  we  understand, 
the  fines,  and  the  whippings,  and  the  imprisonments,  were 
civil;  now  we  arb  to  see  what  was  criminal  in  our  treat- 
ment of  the  black  'man.  And  we  have  it  in  laws  that 
apply  primarily  to  white  people;  these,  white  people  are 
to  obey;  whereas  before  it  was  only  black  persons  who 
were  to  obey — who  could  not  go  on  to  a  neighbor's  farm 
without  permission,  who  could  not  gather  together  in  num- 
bers more  than  three,  and  who  could  not  have  a  jolly  time 
on  Saturday  without  being  flogged  on  Monday. 


46  THE   BLACK    CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

THE   CRIMINAL   CODE. 

Sec.  149.  Enacts  that  if  any  person  (the  law  does  not 
say  in  this  Act,  "if  any  black  or  mulatto  person")  shall 
harbor  or  secrete  any  negro  or  person  of  color,  the  same 
being  a  slave  or  servant,  owing  service  to  any  person  resid- 
ing in  this  State,  or  any  other  Stale  or  Territory  of  the 
Unite  i  States,  (what  a  care  it  has  for  the  citizens  of  other 
States!)  or  shall  in  any  way  /tinder  or  prevent  the  lawful 
owner  from  retaking  such  slave  or  servant  in  a  lawful  man- 
ner, he  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor,  and 
fined,  not  exceeding  five  hundred  dollars,  or  imprisoned, 
not  exceeding  six  months. 

Now  we  know  what  crime  is.  This  law  was  passed 
nearly  twenty  years  before  the  national  'fugitive-slave  law. 
It  virtually  made  Illinois  the  blood-hound  of  the  whole 
slave  region,  including  any  supposed  territory,  which  only 
the  future  could  curse  with  slavery.  Other  States  followed 
this  example  with  similar  enactments.  It  is  very  possible 
that  Judge  Douglas,  in  his  zeal  for  the  good  cause,  may 
have  given  to  his  friend,  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  a 
copy  of  this  Act,  as  a  model  for  the  National  Fugitive-Slave 
Law  of  1850.  To  Illinois  belongs  the  dishonor  of  having 
been  the  first  to  make  a  law  which  made  it  a  crime  to 
feed  the  hungry,  to  clothe  the  naked,  and  to  shelter  the 
stranger,  or  protect  the  fugitive  from  oppression.  "Beray 
not  him  that  wandereth,"  is  a  command  to  humanity  that 
has  come  ringing  down  through  all  the  ages  of  the  past. 
She  opened  wide  the  gate  of  destruction,  as  revealed  by 
the  Saviour  of  Men,  in  the  picture  of  the  scene  of  the 
Last  Judgment. 

Sec.  150.  Actually  forbids  any  person  who  holds  to 
service  any  servant  under  the  laws  of  the  Territory  of 
Indiana  or  Illinois,  from  taking  them  out  of  the  State  for 
sale  (otherwise  kidnapping  them),  under  the  fearful  penalty 


THE   BLACK   CODE   OF    ILLINOIS.  47 

of  forfeiting  his  right  to  them,  and  of  a  fine,  not  exceed- 
ing five  hundred  dollars,  one-half  to  the  benefit  of  the 
kidnapped.  The  penalty  of  kidnapping  is  just  the  same 
in  fine  as  feeding  and  comforting  the  same  person  in  dis- 
tress, with  the  imprisonment  left  out. 

TRUTH    ON   THE   COLOR   LINE. 

Section  16  and  section  3  in  other  Acts  declare  that  the 
testimony  of  no  black  or  mulatto  person,  or  Indian,  shall 
be  received  in  evidence  against  a  white  person.  One- 
fourth  negro  blood  defines  a  mulatto,  or  makes  a  black 
man.  These  Acts  apply  to  civil  and  criminal  proceedings. 
Observe  that  I  introduced  certain  sections,  with  the  premise 
that  no  black  or  mulatto  person  should  do  so  and  so. 
Now  we  know  actually  what  a  black  person  is — he  may  be 
the  offspring  of  an  African,  or  be  the  child  of  a  person 
purely  of  European  extraction,  with  another  European 
whose  father  or  mother  was  an  African.  Thus  the  cele- 
brated French  author,  Dumas,  could  not  have  given  testi- 
mony against  Patrick  O'Flanagan  in  a  court  of  justice  in 
Illinois. 

The  Act  of  1827  denies  the  right  of  habeas  corpus  to 
the  black  man  in  a  trial  for  his  liberty. 

The  law  for  the  establishment  of  free  schools,  after 
eulogizing  education  as  the  means  of  perpetuating  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  limits  the  benefits  of  the  school 
system  to  white  children.  No  black  or  mulatto  person, 
the  son  of  the  greatest  of  the  black's,  Tousaint  L'Over- 
ture,  intermarried  with  the  sister  of  the  greatest  of  the 
whites,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  (an  alliance  which,  if  made, 
he  need  not  have  been  so  much  ashamed  of,  as  he  might 
have  been  of  some  of  his  family  alliances,)  could  not  have 
been  legally  taught  to  read  God's  Word  in  the  public 
schools  of  Illinois. 


48  THE   BLACK   CODE   OF   ILLINOIS. 

OTHER   LEGISLATION. 

In  an  act  for  taxation,  passed  as  late  as  1839,  are 
classed  along  with  stud  horses,  asses,  jennies,  mules,  and 
cattle,  slaves  and  servants  of  color  for  assessment  for  taxes, 
with  other  kinds  of  personal  property.  Thus  were  men, 
because  colored,  bought  and  sold  as  property,  advertised 
in  newspapers  as  runaways,  bequeathed  in  wills,  and  set- 
tled in  estates, — and  now  classed  with  jackasses,  as  prop- 
erty for  taxation,  under  the  laws  of  this  State. 

As  population  increased  and  civilization  advanced  in 
the  State,  it  is  but  to  be  presumed  that  amendments  and 
alterations  of  our  laws  would  be  required.  Here  seemed 
to  be  a  broad  sphere  of  amendment  in  the  proper  sense. 
So  we  find,  as  in  1833,  that  in  1845  our  laws  required 
revision,  and  condensation  into  the  practical  form  for 
administration,  so  we  have  the  statute  book  of  1845. 
Immediately  following  the  intense  agitation  for  the  repeal 
of  these  laws,  and  the  various  attempts  at  prosecution, 
such  as  the  Lovejoy  trial,  we  find  in  this  new  book  of 
the  law  all  this  code  affecting  the  negro,  which  I  have  ! 
reviewed,  properly  compiled,  and  made  available  in  the 
courts  of  justice  for  effective  use.  The  Black  Code  is  there 
perhaps  rehashed,  but  certainly  boiled  down  and  intensi- 
fied, parting  with  none  of  its  peculiar  ancient  animus,  but 
as  ever  weighted  down  with  all  the  malignity  that  patriot- 
ism demanded  should  be  aimed  at  the  unfortunate  negro. 

A    HIGH    MISDEMEANOR. 

We  come  along  down  now  a  few  years  further,  till  two 
or  three  years  after  the  enactment  of  the  National  Fugi-  ; 
tive- Slave  Law,  (the  Nation  therein  showed  the  big  N,) 
and  we  find  still  another  law  on  this  irrepressible  subject, 
that  of  February  12,  1853.  What  immediate  occasion 
there  was  for  it  it  is  hard  to  tell;  it  is  only  an  emphasis, 
like  the  traditional  sentence  of  the  judge  on  the  culprit  of 


